A New World…Out of Nothing

This interactive, interdisciplinary workshop will tell the story of how a Non-Euclidean Geometry was created in the 19th century, “out of nothing.” This breakthrough had huge influence in many areas of knowledge, from Philosophy, to the Arts, to the Physical Sciences.

Using interactive activities, we will get familiar with new ways of seeing distance and shapes.

We will explore in more detail how the new Geometry influenced work in the Arts, literature and fiction, and how it is the basis of some fundamental discoveries in Physics, such as Relativity.

There will be a chance to engage, in an informal way, with some abstract mathematical concepts.

The workshop will end with a panel discussion about how we communicate Science to non-experts.

A group of experts will guide our journey:

Prof Jeremy Gray (University of Warwick and Open University), expert in History of Mathematics